by Hiromi Goto
“Good thinking,” Jade Rat sighed with relief. “Now get a knife.”
Melanie jerked with shock. Then resumed pouring the ice in a circle around Mr. Glueskin’s feet. Her face twisting with distaste, she pulled his collar away from his neck to drop ice cubes down the front of his shirt until he was completely surrounded and filled with ice. “No,” Melanie said slowly. “We can’t kill him.”
Mr. Glueskin was solid. Even his eyes had ceased moving. He looked like a poorly made sculpture for a parking lot carnival.
“Why not?” Jade Rat panted. Her sides heaved with exhaustion and she was scarcely bigger than a shrew. “He would have done the same to you, even worse. If we let him live he’s going to come after you again. We have to end it now.”
Melanie poured ice into his large rubber boots, then, wrinkling her face with great disgust, let the frozen cubes rattle down his waistband. The plastic bags were empty. Mr. Glueskin was completely frozen.
Until all the cubes melted.
How long would it take?
Melanie looked up.
Everyone was looking at her. The party guests who had remained to fight the crows. The birds that were still alive. The starfish-child’s face was exposed, her mouth hanging open with wonder and awe. The woman with the eel arms stared at her from the carpet, the black sinuous skin of her limbs writhing with confusion. The bird-headed man’s beak snicked with agitation.
In the stillness, Melanie could hear the click, clackof dry bones trying to pull themselves together again.
Her mother. Coming toward them from the kitchen. The shards of her mirror dress glinted like a stream, some of the larger pieces reflecting, for microseconds, the carnage around them: dead twisted crows, empty eye sockets, mounds of feathers, and pools of black blood.
Fumiko moved like a sleepwalker, a meat cleaver held high above her head. Her dark eyes were blank, dead, the splotches of blood upon her cheeks black and inky.
Melanie’s heart clenched hard into stone.
What had her mother become?
Fumiko stopped beside Mr. Glueskin. Expressionless, wordless, she let the weight of the meat cleaver fall toward the back of his exposed and frozen neck.
“No!” Melanie, ducking between them, caught Fumiko’s wrists with her hands.
Fumiko did not respond. She did not fight her daughter, but she seemed to be caught in a sleepwalker’s motion. She continued to press down, as if the steely blade were being pulled toward Mr. Glueskin’s vulnerable neck.
“No, Mother!” Melanie cried out. “We must not do this thing!”
“How will we stop him, then?” Jade Rat said hoarsely. Melanie could scarcely hear her voice. The rat sounded so weak, but Melanie dared not look at her. She could feel her arms beginning to quiver as her mother bore downward.
“He will melt. Then he will begin again,” Jade Rat whispered. “We must cut him into pieces and scatter them throughout this Realm. Bury the pieces deep. Anything.”
Something clicked inside Melanie’s mind. “That’s just it!” Melanie cried. “It doesn’t matter if we destroy him. The cycle will repeat, even though we’ve done this horrific thing. He will start back at the beginning of his cycle, no matter how far we’ve scattered his body. It’s not his body that has to be broken. It’s the cycle!”
A silence rang.
Like a deep bell, like circular ripples expanding in a pool of water. In the distance they heard a mournful mewing. The sound was muffled, and they strained their ears to pinpoint the source of the sound.
A cat, perhaps, in the neighboring suite?
The mewling was slowly growing louder.
A crinkle, crinkleof sound, of something brittle beginning to break.
The floor lurched, the ceiling swaying, and Melanie staggered with sudden vertigo. People, creatures cried out with fear, threw themselves to the floor on all fours for greater stability.
Fumiko’s grip slipped and the heavy cleaver fell, fell, ever so slowly as Melanie stared with horrified eyes, the great silver blade spinning a slow three hundred and sixty degrees to embed, blade first, sinking a few inches into Mr. Glueskin’s head.
Mr. Glueskin’s body tottered, and it was enough. He began to tip backward like a falling statue. He landed on the carpet with a soft thud, lolling a little from side to side, as solid as stone, until he came to a rest.
They stared at his frozen form, the cleaver stuck in his head.
It was so horrible. It looked almost comic.
Melanie was simultaneously swamped by nausea and hilarity.
A loud cracksplit the air, as loud as cleaving alabaster, and they all gasped, leaping backward.
As if something under great pressure had finally been breached, Mr. Glueskin split from his head downward, his clothes parting, to expose a white, bloodless vertical seam in his abdomen.
The mewling cries grew louder, rasping with urgency.
They leaned in close to see. . . .
A wet crack! Mr. Glueskin, hard as a peach pit, split wide open to reveal a tender center.
A great wind roared about Melanie’s head, whipping her hair, and she staggered against her mother’s body. Just as suddenly the air stilled. The perpetual reek of vinegar had disappeared. A baby cried, loud and healthy.
They stared, shocked, speechless, at Mr. Glueskin. His hardened white body had cracked in two. He had no entrails or bones; he was solid white all the way through. And in splitting he had exposed a small baby. Pale, faintly pink and luminescent, the infant seemed furiously alive, kicking the air with his tiny heels, tiny hands squeezed into tight fists. A moist, sweet fragrance of rising bread. . . .
SEVENTEEN
JADE RAT STOOD upright on her haunches, her tiny paws crossed upon her chest. Her voice was small, but she spoke clearly with reverence and profound completion.
A child is formed and leaves
unborn
a flight across the divide
When she returns
so ends what should
not be
a child is born
impossibly
in the nether Realm of Half World.
The tiny rat wavered for a microsecond, then with a barely audible click, she fell back to the carpet, an amulet once more.
The infant’s cries were growing stronger. Mr. Glueskin’s guests shuffled nervously backward, muttering among themselves.
Melanie glanced anxiously at their human and inhuman faces. Was the prophecy complete? Had the Realms been reunited?
Were she and her mother free to return home?
The baby continued squalling, and Fumiko shook her head. The noise seemed to rouse her and she frowned, as if waking from the depths of someone else’s dream. She raised her head and caught sight of her daughter.
“Melanie?” she asked, her voice tinted with alarm, surprise. “Melanie?”
Melanie’s face lit up, like a flower facing the sun.
Fumiko raised a trembling hand to cup her daughter’s jaw.
Melanie closed her eyes and hot tears trickled down to pool inside her mother’s palm.
“This is wrong,” a creature hissed.
“Mr. Glueskin will blame us when he comes back!” a second voice grunted.
“We must do something,” someone hoarsely urged.
The bird-headed man clacked his predatory beak. “In his cycle, he was killed by his father while his mother was trying to birth him. That’s the cycle that formed him. That’s the cycle that he stretched. He was the first who understood that we could change, stretch, reshape our Half Lives.”
The eel-armed woman nodded her lovely head. Her dark eyes gleamed with feeling. “He was trapped, as a baby, almost born, but always dying. But over hundreds and hundreds of years, he built upon his knowledge. Until the victim became the killer!”
The bird-headed man’s feathers stood upright with great agitation. “He is our savior! He showed us how we could become powerful, even though we are thrown back to our original trauma once
more!”
The eel-lady wrapped her slimy limbs around her lithe torso. “I would still be in the sea, drowning, if it wasn’t for Mr. Glueskin,” she whispered.
The bird-headed man tilted his head to one side, his gray eye glinting, unreadable. “He must not be allowed to be born again. Not like this! It goes against everything that he has become! If one cycle is broken who can say what will happen to ours?” He took a step closer to them and Melanie heard a small crunch.
“No!” Melanie cried out. She shoved the bird-man, hard, and he staggered several steps backward. Melanie crouched down, her heart thumping loudly.
A piece still remained attached to the length of red string. But half of the jade amulet had been crushed into fragments.
Jade Rat—broken.
Melanie’s lower lip wobbled. I’m sorry, Gao Zhen Xi, she thought. I’m sorry, Ms. Wei. I’m so sorry, Jade Rat.
Melanie snatched up the string and wound it around her wrist, leaving the ends to be clasped inside her hand. She began backing toward the snuffling baby. She could feel her mother doing the same.
Melanie held out her free hand, palm outward. “Wait,” she implored. “Can’t you see? We need to change the cycle. You have all been trapped in suffering. But it doesn’t have to be this way!” With her peripheral vision she could see crows quietly hopping toward her.
“You child,” the eel-armed woman snickered. “This is our Half World. This is all that we know.” She bent down low, her eel arms writhing wildly. She dropped open her mouth to reveal a stubby black eel tongue. It had eyes and a mouth lined with fine needle teeth. “This is all that we want!” the eel tongue squealed.
Fumiko snatched Baby G from his shell and yanked the back of Melanie’s dress. “Run!” she shouted just as all of the crows upon the carpet burst upward, creating a thunderous black wall of wings.
The party guests reared back from the burst of motion, and Melanie, the amulet clutched tightly in her palm, ran with her mother through the front door and into the corridor.
Stairwell, Melanie thought frantically. To the roof of the building. Back to the mountain and the bridge of crows.
The crows. Belated tears of gratitude filled her eyes.
She spun toward the sign that marked the fire escape.
Fumiko pulled her toward the elevator. “This way! I remember!” she choked.
They could hear the din of voices, snarling, bleating, the rush of wings.
Melanie, after a moment’s hesitation, ran with her mother toward the paired doors.
“Down!” Fumiko cried.
Melanie pounded the button. “Come on!” she begged. “Come on, come on!”
From behind them the pitch of voices changed, growing jubilant and frenetic. For the first time, the crows began to caw. They cawed and cawed, the sounds of their cries growing distant, then disappearing.
Melanie and her mother heard Mr. Glueskin’s door opening just as the bell tinged the arrival of the elevator.
They rushed into the car, and as Melanie pounded on the “Close” button they stared down the hallway.
The door to Mr. Glueskin’s suite was open, but something was blocking the exit.
A strangely formed thing, holding back the mob with numerous triangle-shaped limbs.
It was the starfish-child; her bumpy armor top turned to the rage of the mob, Melanie could just make out her daisy face profile. She was smiling bravely. “Hurry!” she urged as the elevator doors began to shut. Just as one arm, then another, was ripped from the starfish-child’s body.
Melanie sobbed.
Fumiko, eyes grim, Baby G clasped to the left side of her chest, pressed a button on the panel.
The number four lit up.
“No!” Melanie cried. “What are you doing! The fourth floor is evil!” She tried to push the “Emergency Stop” button, any button, but her mother seized her arm in a fierce grip.
“Stop it!” Fumiko said sharply.
Melanie recoiled. She had never heard her mother sound so forceful before.
Baby G began whimpering and Fumiko jostled him comfortingly. “I’m sorry, Melanie,” Fumiko said softly. “But it’s the only way back to your Realm.”
Melanie sagged back against the cool wall. Of course. It made sense, really. She looked up at the ceiling, wondering how quickly the second car would reach the mob. “What are you going to do with the baby?” she asked. Her feelings writhed, complicated, confused.
Fumiko shook her head. “I don’t know. But he cannot be left here to fall back into his cycle.”
The elevator seemed to cushion itself, and the bell tinged before the car came to a complete stop.
They were stopped on the thirteenth floor.
Fumiko looked at Melanie sharply.
“I didn’t touch it!” Melanie exclaimed.
Futilely they pressed themselves against the back panel of the car.
The doors silently slid open.
A pale suit, outdated and too small, did little to hide an un-tucked dirty T-shirt, a beer belly flopping over the cinch of belt. A crumpled five-dollar bill had been crammed into the buttonhole. Clinging to the man’s arm was a beautiful woman with long black hair, wearing a floor-length black gown. Her eyes were completely rolled back in her head. Only the whites showed, gleaming wetly.
The man leaned a little too far forward as he winked one of his small watermelon seed eyes. “We got off on the wrong floor,” he enunciated carefully. “We’ve been invited to a party in the penthouse!”
“Shinobu!” Fumiko cried, her voice as wild as a falcon.
The man reared back. His pale face blanched completely white. He blinked and blinked, shaking off his companion’s hand to rub both of his eyes with the heels of his palms.
Fumiko thrust Baby G into Melanie’s arms.
Instinctively she cradled him.
“I’m sorry,” Fumiko said grimly, and pushed Shinobu’s date, hard. The woman fell backward onto her bottom.
Fumiko grabbed Shinobu’s crusty lapels and yanked him into the elevator. She pounded the “Close” button and the car began descending once more.
Melanie stared at her mother and father. She had never seen them together. They both seemed like strangers.
Shinobu stood gaping at Fumiko. A light beginning to grow in his eyes. He blinked and blinked with confusion. Wonder.
Lips quivering, Fumiko smiled, beautiful.
Tears filled Melanie’s eyes as she watched years falling from her mother’s face as her mother continued gazing upon her father.
“Remember?” Fumiko asked him gently. She turned toward her daughter and stretched her hand to stroke Melanie’s cheek with infinite gentleness. “Our daughter, Shinobu. Our daughter, Melanie.”
“She’s alive,” Shinobu’s voice trembled. He slapped his own face, hard. The sharp sound startled them all. “Is this happening? I’ve been lost for so long.” His voice began to crumble. “Fumiko . . . ”
Fumiko enfolded Shinobu with her arms. “It’s been fourteen years,” she murmured into his dirty hair. “Our daughter grew up in Life, even though we do not hold Life ourselves.” She shook Shinobu and he raised his head.
Pride shone from his eyes.
“We have done well,” Fumiko murmured, “but it is not over yet.”
The elevator sagged then cushioned a few inches upward before it came to a stop.
Ting.
They were on the fourth floor.
“Not again,” Shinobu’s voice was low. Weary.
“No,” Fumiko whispered. “It’s different this time.”
The doors began to slide.
Too late, Melanie remembered the barrage of awful noise. Her shoulders tensed instinctively, and the baby in her arms, sensing her change, stilled.
The doors opened to utter darkness. Silence.
Baby G gave a soft sigh.
Shinobu swallowed loud enough for everyone to hear. He cleared his throat. “Whose baby is this?” he asked hoarsely.
“Not mine!” Melanie said sharply, her ears burning. “It’s Mr. Glueskin! He was born again!” As her words sank in, Melanie couldn’t stop a small giggle from escaping.
The darkness engulfed the sound.
“Shhhh,” Fumiko cautioned.
The light from the elevator should have been cast outward, to reveal at the very least the floor of the hallway, but it was as if all light were swallowed. They could not discern any shape or shadow. They could not know if anything even existed beyond the open doorway.
Melanie’s heart tripped. What was out there? There was no way to tell if a hallway existed at all. Maybe it was an enormous room and things, creatures, monsters were all staring at them, exposed like actors on a tiny, brightly lit stage. Maybe they couldn’t attack until they entered the dark. They would be torn to pieces, limbs strewn, and devoured.
A mechanical grinding.
They twitched, hypersensitive, and stared fearfully at the darkness. As realization set in, all three simultaneously stared up at the ceiling of the car. The clinking and whirring were the sounds of an elevator car descending. . . .
The mob must have waited to see which floor they stopped at. And now they were coming.
Melanie squeezed her hand around the broken edge of the jade amulet. She glanced down at the pink baby in her arms. His eyes were closed and he had both middle and ring finger stuffed inside his mouth.
Melanie took a deep breath and stepped out of the elevator. Fumiko grabbed a small handful of cloth at the back of her dress, and Shinobu clasped Fumiko’s hand so that wherever the darkness took them they would be together.
EIGHTEEN
THEY SHUFFLED IN the utter blackness. Even Melanie’s Life had no powers to bring light into the unspace. That there was something upon which to place their feet, upon which to walk, seemed miraculous, and each foot raised was a surge of despair, each step placed a gasp of relief.
Melanie looked back, once, just as the elevator doors closed, the rectangle of light growing thinner until it disappeared. When she looked forward, she was no longer certain if it actually was the same direction they had been moving. In the absolute darkness there was no up or down or markers of time. The only intervals were their heartbeats. . . .
